Dictionary of Revolutionary Marxism

— Gu - Gz —

GUARANTEED BASIC INCOME
A proposed method of trying to keep capitalism from self-destructing by granting every adult
a state-funded guaranteed minimum income even if there are no jobs for them.
There are today constant technical advances and
a continuous growth of labor productivity. And with the elimination of more and more jobs—not
only in manufacturing, but with the development of more sophisticated
computers and
artificial intelligence—also clerical jobs and
even “knowledge work” too, it is now possible to produce all the goods and services for which
there is a profitable market with fewer and fewer workers. Thus the further continuation of
capitalism is in growing conflict with the welfare and livelihood of more and more people. The
scheme of implementing a guaranteed basic income is put forward as a means of pacifying the
expanding numbers of the unemployed masses and, in accordance with liberal sensibilities, at
least keeping them from starving to death.
There are lots of difficulties for the
capitalist ruling class in actually attempting to implement any program of guaranteed minimum
incomes, however. If one country implements such a plan and others do not, then the economy
of the “liberal” country will be at a serious economic disadvantage compared with the more
dog-eat-dog capitalist state. (This is the same sort of competition for profits that keeps
any individual corporation from paying its workers significantly above the going wage rates.
Capitalism is always a “race to the bottom” as far as the pay, benefits and welfare of the
working class is concerned.) Moreover, it is to the economic advantage of the capitalists to
have a mass of desperate unemployed workers around. As one 19th century capitalist (Samuel
Insull) put it, “My experience is that the greatest aid to the efficiency of labor is a long
line of men waiting at the gate.”
There are now, however, a few beginning
experiments with a guaranteed basic income, including a small-scale trial (of just 5,000
people) in Finland. There is also growing discussion of the idea all around the world,
including in relatively poor countries like India. It is perhaps true that a growing
number of countries will be forced to try such schemes as the world capitalist economic
crisis further worsens. But it is virtually certain that these programs—even if they are
actually implemented on a wide scale—will be more hype than reality, and will be
pathetically inadequate. Moreover, it is very wrong for Marxists to promote such schemes,
as the first quotation below brings out. A social program focused on promoting a guaranteed
basic income in effect acquiesces in the
lumpenproletarianization of the working
class.

[In response to growing fears about automation and the elimination of
jobs during the 1960s, and the popular liberal document of those times in reaction to
this, known as “The Triple Revolution”:]
“It is against this background that
one must evaluate the central proposal of ‘The Triple Revolution,’ that society should
guarantee to all an adequate income regardless of whether they work or not. The authors
see this guaranteed income as taking the place of what they call the patchwork of welfare
measures designed to ensure that no one shall actually starve, and they believe that its
enactment will inaugurate an era of social and moral regeneration. If the proposal is
addressed to the oligarchy which now controls the surplus out of which these guaranteed
incomes would have to be paid, its acceptance, we fear, would have a different meaning
and different consequences. It would be a streamlining of the present patchwork of
welfare measures, not a replacement of them. And far from inaugurating an era of
regeneration, it would merely tend to dull the sense of anger and outrage which is the
natural human reaction to a society as corrupt and shameful as ours, and which we can at
least hope is the harbinger of a genuinely revolutionary movement to come.
“Our conclusion can only be that the
idea of unconditionally guaranteed incomes is not the great revolutionary principle which
the authors of ‘The Triple Revolution’ evidently believe it to be. If applied under our
present system, it would be, like religion, an opiate of the people tending to strengthen
the status quo. And under a socialist system, as we argued above, it would be quite
unnecessary and might do more harm than good.”
—The Editors [Paul Sweezy & Leo
Huberman], “The Triple Revolution”, Monthly Review, November 1964, p. 422.

“The idea of the basic income was first posited by those on the left
in the 1960s as a response to an initial automation scare, and this led to a lively
debate. It was regarded skeptically by those who saw it as no solution at all, but
merely a way for the wealthy to bribe the bulk of the population so they could keep
their system and their privileges. At the heart of many basic-income proposals is a
calculus that says that once people get their annual check sent to them by a government,
that is the end of any services they get from that government. If they want healthcare
or transit, or quality education, they have to go buy it in the marketplace, like they
would a hamburger or a pair of shoes. In this scenario, all public services would be
privatized. The grand irony of ‘basic income’ thinking along these lines is that it
leads to the precise opposite of where John Stuart Mill and John Maynard Keynes wanted
to end up. Instead of reducing commercialism and the market in a post-scarcity world,
it elevates commercialism and the market so that everything is for sale. Hardly a
recipe for human happiness. And economist Tyler Cowen makes the astute point that even
if this looks like a terrific deal for society’s millionaires, it is almost certain
they will resist paying taxes to sustain those they regard as deadbeats and freeloaders.
Then there develops a massive popular struggle to win and maintain the basic income. If
people are going to organize a gigantic battle, they ought to fight for more than this.
They ought to fight for a world where their concerns are central, and not struggle to
be extras in a world of, by, and for the rich.” —Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols,
People Get Ready: The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy
(2016), p. 250. [We are impressed that even the more sophisticated
social-democrats such as these authors see how
deeply mistaken (and bourgeois!) it would be to build a political program for the “left”
based on the demand for a guaranteed minimum income! —Ed.]

“Guesdists—followers of Jules Guesde
and Paul Lafargue. They constituted a Left Marxist trend that stood for the independent
revolutionary politics of the French proletariat. They retained the name of Workers’
Party of France and remained true to the Havre Party Programme adopted in 1880, the
theoretical part of which was written by Marx. They had considerable influence in French
industrial centers and united the progressive elements of the French working class. In
1901 the Guesdists founded the Socialist Party of France.” —Note 46, Lenin: SW I (1967).

GUEVARA, Ernesto “Che” (1928-67)
Famous Argentinian Marxist revolutionary who played an important role in the Cuban
Revolution, and through a firm internationalist perspective attempted to help promote
revolutions throughout the world. While in many respects a great and appropriately honored
revolutionary, some of his political views and theories were seriously wrong, and even led to
disaster both for others and himself. (See: FOCO
THEORY.)
In 1951 Che took a year off from his
medical studies and travelled around South America on a motorcycle. He later wrote up
his experiences in his Motorcycle Diaries, eventually made into a well-known and
excellent film. Che was transformed by the horrible poverty and conditions of the people
that he saw on this trip, and soon came to understand that the great inequalities of
wealth in Latin America were due to the domination of capitalism, neocolonialism and
imperialism. He graduated with a medical degree from the University of Buenos Aires in
1953.
Che participated in the social reform
program of the government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in Guatemala, and the 1954 CIA-organized
overthrow of that democratically elected government further radicalized him.
Che met Fidel Castro in Mexico and joined
his 26th of July Movement. He was with Castro in December 1956 when they “invaded” Cuba and
then set up guerrilla operations in the Sierra Maestra mountains. Che played an important
leading role in the two years of low-level guerrilla warfare in Cuba. This guerrilla
warfare was one of the factors that led to the collapse of the Batista dictatorship around
January 1, 1959.
Che also played an important role in the
first years of the Cuban revolutionary government. He served at various times as Minister
of Industry, president of the national bank, and a high-level Cuban diplomat. He played
an important role in agreeing to bring Soviet nuclear-armed missiles to Cuba, about which
President John F. Kennedy and U.S. imperialism came very close to starting a nuclear world
war.
While Castro tended to lean toward Soviet
revisionist ideology (as well as toward the Soviet Union for economic support and military
protection), Che was more ambivalent and on a few questions took a position closer to
that of Maoism. Che always firmly upheld the need for revolutionary armed struggle, though
it seems he did not fully appreciate the importance of the peasantry in Third World
countries. However, for him moral incentives under socialism were much more important than
material incentives. He argued that it was necessary to work toward forging a new political
consciousness, or toward creating a “new man”, as a means of promoting socialist production,
whereas revisionists typically argue that production must be hugely expanded first before
any progress toward creating a “new man” can be achieved (or even be seriously attempted).
Perhaps partly because of the intensifying
Sino-Soviet split and Castro’s siding with the revisionists, Che gradually became more
and more disatisfied with his role in the Cuban government. Finally, in 1965 he resigned
from all roles in that government and first headed off to the Congo (Kinshasa) in Africa
to participate in revolutionary guerrilla warfare there. After that failed, he headed to
South America, and made another attempt at his foco
strategy in Bolivia. This failed even more disastrously. In 1967 Che was captured by
the Bolivian Army (with the help of the CIA), and was then secretly tortured and
executed. It was the sad end to the life of a sincere and dedicated revolutionary.
But even in death, Che Guevara still
serves the world revolution as an honored and respected martyr. He is perhaps as famous
and influential today as he has been at any time since the late 1960s.
See also the important 1985 essay,
“Guevara, Debray, and Armed Revisionism”, by Lenny Wolff, at
http://www.bannedthought.net/Cuba-Che/Guevara/Guevara-Debray-Wolff.pdf for a
strongly critical appraisal of Che, Régis Debray, and focoism.